Me and the Trench Coat Man
by The East Wind
Summary: A poem I wrote based on a tumblr post. The Impala sat in the vacant lot for as long as I remembered. I had always wondered about the story behind it and the trench coat man who visited. Then, one day, I asked him. Castiel loneliness and angst.


It was long enough ago,

That I remember only pieces,

A colorfully rusted license plate,

A trench coat full of creases.

The old black car sat in the vacant lot,

For as long as I had looked,

And wondered why it had been left,

What passengers it once took.

The place was sad, so empty and dark,

Picture it now if you can,

It seemed as though only I really cared,

Well, me and the trench coat man.

He came twice a month, as I quickly caught on,

But I never knew the length of the stay,

I was always put to bed while his form was still clear,

And he vanished like mist the next day.

But I saw, many times, when I passed him by,

Running down the road to reach home,

The shadow in his eyes, like reminiscent horror,

Perched on the hood, like a bird made of stone.

Children's fingers oft would press,

Against the glass to try to see,

Where bigger kids had once tried to drive off,

In the worn leather of the driver's seat.

They were stopped, they claim, by the mystery man,

Whose voice no one ever had heard,

But one look, one flash, and they scattered like rabbits,

What kind of flash? No one knows. How absurd.

The world was black, that night I couldn't sleep,

The stars merely glittered, gave barely a spark,

I crossed the chilled floor to the window to see,

The man down below, all alone in the dark.

I did not know fear, being hardly aged 6,

I knew only friendship and curiosity,

I embraced both of these and descended the stairs,

And crossed through the darkness, the asphalt sea.

His face was like stone; his hair matched the car,

Black and sleek but tainted like rust,

I made a noise, and he turned to look,

And his eyes were so pure, like an ocean, like trust.

So I asked of the car, the Impala, the mystery,

Is it yours? Why do you come here every night?

Suddenly, I saw pain behind the face of granite,

Before it morphed to a smile as soft as light.

He shifted to the left, tan coat moving with him,

Which I held as I climbed up to fill the slot,

He gazed at the stars, then at me, then he sighed,

The wind blew. I shivered. He did not.

Then he spoke and his voice filled my ears, filled my mind,

Though I recall not a detail of its sound,

What I recall is the tale, so sad, so beautiful,

Like the car left to rot on these grounds.

He spoke of two brothers, of a bond unbroken,

Of their strength and their guilt and their pain,

How they protected the world from Hell itself,

In the car that now corroded in the rain.

At the mention of Hell, his story took a turn,

As he told me one brother had died,

But then came an angel, who pulled the man free,

And from then on, rarely left the brothers' sides.

The three took on the world; they fought for free will,

They saved Heaven, 'til it fell apart again,

But they were as strong as brothers, and the angel had hope,

That there may be peace on earth in the end.

See, the angel was different; he could see Heaven's flaws,

So he turned and went back to force a change,

But he went too far; he betrayed his friends' trust,

So they left him, as he deserved, power-hungry and insane.

But after death, resurrection, and pleading for forgiveness,

The brothers took him back, useless as the angel was,

He had fallen from grace, felt homeless and afraid,

But he fought for a reason, and found them to be a decent cause.

With the dangers they faced, one thing the brothers knew,

Was that a peaceful death was never an option,

So when Death showed his face, they were less than afraid,

And ran headfirst, side by side to destruction.

But the angel never thought he might be left behind,

To morn their passing day after day,

So he took these moments now, just this small bit of time,

To wish that they had not made him stay.

With a start, my small brain realized the point,

And I looked up at him, eyes gone wide,

He smiled down at me, a real smile for once,

And said he felt better, and thanked me for my time.

Then a noise enveloped my ears, and even now,

The sound of a feathered rustle stays with me,

I blinked, and focused closely on the emptiness,

That once contained the man I now so wanted to see.

I saw the man years later, but only once more,

A lone trench coat in the Sioux Falls graveyard,

Before I could approach, he turned, as though to leave,

But took no exit, merely vanished into the stars.

Though I never had asked for the names of the brothers,

I looked at the stones by which I saw him stand,

Now, no one knows just why I visit the Winchesters' graves,

Only me and the trench coat man.

* * *

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